During my 30s I was in the depths of heavy to industrial strength mental health issues. Now I’m 47 and over the last three years of training to become to become a counsellor I have traced this issue back to one pivotal moment that a fellow tutor has labelled a ‘trauma’. Certainly I didn’t register that at the time, and it was self-inflicted though as a kid of 14, I wouldn’t have understood that. I’ll return to this in due course.
BTW before I continue I should point out that the writing may not be linear — one thing I’ve discovered is that my mind works in spirals, with a feeling of being outside of time. It makes connecting with the world difficult.
My issues involved suicide ideation, attempted suicide, threats of being sectioned, medication, kicking the meds that made me apathetic and robbed me of any creative drive. Withdrawal followed along with the return of agonising existential pain. As the NHS and local GP services couldn’t help (not really their fault as provision has alway been dire) I saved up and sought help form the private health sector. One expensive session with a psychiatrist later and I discover I have a condition that includes Asperger’s and OCD (at least a high functioning form of Asperger’s). Suddenly my social awkwardness, obsessions, poor communications skills (often non-verbal), the inability to read people, and seeming lack of emotion and empathy began to make sense.
Depression was the symptom of Asperger’s. Not fitting in, nothing making sense, a constant strive for meaning and purpose, and the complete lack of understanding and frustration that followed, now had a prime cause I knew its name, what was I to do about it?
For me the answer came from philosophy. Nietzsche was a grumpy bastard, yet amongst all of that there were key ideas that I latched on to such self domination (Ubermensch) and living in the moment (Eternal Return). I’m simplifying here, obvs, but I thought that if I was going to live something of a ‘normal’ life I need to overcome these perceived limitations and be like everyone else. I was in the middle of doing a research degree, taking Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and turning into a graphic novel in its entirety creating something I termed ‘the visual aphorism’. simply put I had an annoying idea that I needed to work out of my head as a catharsis and focus away from my problems; the work did work and I adopted these philosophies as part of my coping mechanisms to ward of depression and nihilism.
Next came the challenge of ‘fitting in’. No matter where I’ve worked, I’ve been the odd one out. I dress in black, I have a dark, morbid sense of humour, I tend to flow in the opposite direction of those around me and am governed by logic and reason. I never laughed at their jokes nor engaged in small talk, quite happy to grab a brew, sit at my desk and just design in my own abyssal bubble. their noise and chatter claws away at me.
I decided that if I were to grow and get away from this, then I needed to develop interpersonal skills. This brings me to my first year as a counselling student.
I do not get on with new groups of people very well at all, it takes some time to suss them out, due to my inability to read them I guess, plus I just don’t do small talk and it’s been my experience that too many waterboard me with irrelevant nonsense I don’t care about. When I’m at work, I like to just do the job so give me the specifics and I’ll crack on.This was the mentality I had when I started the course, so at first I never contributed as I was too busy figuring people out and others were talking about their feelings, which brings me to the title of this blog.
While I was invested in the theory of the course, and enjoyed employing it as part of my personal development, something became quite evident during triad sessions (where we practice the listening skills). My fellow students were quite emotional at times where as I am ‘meh’; not only for myself but when experiencing the emotions of others.
However, during one of the early Personal Development groups (PD) inwardly, I had a visceral reaction when a classmate started to cry; my thought was ‘stop that, stop it now!’ and I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought the experience curious.
As the course progressed and the encounters with emotional classmates grew more frequent, I learned to sit with their emotions while not being drawn into them. There are three core conditions in Person Centred Counselling (PCC): Unconditional Position Regard, Congruence, and Empathy. My lack of empathy has me concerned as if I cannot offer that condition I cannot progress either on the course or in life though once I began to join in the PD groups I mentioned this and learned that there are three types of empathy: cognitive (where one understands the emotion but does not feel it), affective (where one feels an appropriate emotional response) and emotional (the ability to differentiate one’s feelings from another’s and quite key to counselling practice). I am more the former than the latter examples, so with this in mind, next came the stumbling block of actually responding to a client.
I rarely talk as it is and often my mind goes through multiple responses before deciding on one and even then the disconnect between my mind and my voice leads to me never uttering what I’m actually thinking, rather, some garbled version that just blurts out. Using the counselling skills of paraphrasing and reflection has helped me with that and I take a moment to rephrase their feelings into something I understand before speaking. It’s also helped me to slow down my speech generally and accepting my difference has given me more confidence in these scenarios.
We also got to express ourselves creatively and for a presentation, I used my skills as an illustrator and artist to depict the issues that had bothered me. I think, speak and act mostly in metaphor and often use internal references only I understand. By discussing why I called my depression Richmond (after the character from the IT Crowd) and that it was a shape shifting imp I opened myself up to underlying issues such as the search for purpose, meaning etc. My philosophical reading has helped somewhat, though it was good to share and get other’s insights. From this I have done further reading and have traced the theory behind PCC back through existentialism to Taoism, just in time for the Level 3 course to begin.
Lvl3
I found that I dropped into a familiar pattern when I began the level three; I was withdrawn, non-communicative, not engaging with classmates. However, it only took a few weeks this time to chat with classmates, though I wasn’t keen on sharing at this point. As the course progressed the tutor (who was there on my level 2) kept dropping me in it to answer questions, so through that the group become more familiar with me, and I with them. I felt I still had work to do with empathy and became locked into that mode of thought, which I realise, holds me back.
This though became obvious on our residential weekend, as we participated in activities that made us focus on our lives and those events, conditions and values that have shaped us. One activity involved sitting with the group while we listened to a piece of music each of us would share. The music was related to an emotional time in our lives. This lead to much crying (except from me, though there I was not without understanding) even when I played my piece of music (the opening theme from Superman the Movie). I should follow this with an explanation: everyone else picked a song with meaningful lyrics, but this theme has come to represent something more than the movie and a happier time. I was five when I saw Superman upon its release in 1978. The image of Clark running across the street, ripping open his shirt to reveal the ‘S’ was revelatory (though I never knew it at the time). Years passed and I’m in the pit of depression, but my enjoyment of the character leads me to research his history and the ties with Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. I won’t go into too much detail here, but my research degree was on this topic and you can read about it here: https://www.academia.edu/27343830/Picturing_Nietzsches_Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra_Representing_philosophical_ideas_in_graphic_novel_format
Suffice to say the character of Superman is intrinsic to my being so the soundtrack means a lot. What I did note is that when discussing something I’m passionate about, or something that is of importance. I become more animated. My speech is quicker, I gesticulate, and become more articulate. I had never really noticed that until it was mentioned, and now I see it more and more, particularly as I discuss current issues on my level 4.
